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djcoax's avatar

djcoax

Leviathan is a retelling of the book of Job from the Bible, where a small and simple man is fiercely tested by his God. The story brings us to a small fishing village in Russia, where Kolya , a simple and hardworking man lives with his son Roma and his new wife Lilya. It's clear from the beginning that this is not a harmonious family as Roma is rebelling against his father and stepmother Lilya especially and not willing to accept her. The local town , symbolized by a terribly corrupt mayor wants to evict Kolya and his family from their house in order to demolish it. Kolya hires his best friend Dima , a lawyer from Moscow to fight the eviction in court.

The Leviathan from the title points to the immense corruption that pervades Russian society. In that way this is some kind of wonder that the Russian Ministry of Culture have approved this film. The rights of the small man don't mean anything at all, as the mayor points out in some drunken vodka-infused rant : they're all insects, put on the earth to be trampled. He feels above the law, when he shows up completely drunk , accompanied by some bodyguards to personally threaten Kolya and his family.

By the way, the main characters all seem to self-medicate heavily with bottle upon bottle of vodka , in order to escape the reality of what is happening to them.

The movie is about the interpersonal relationships between the main characters , father and son, husband and wife, Kolya and Dima, .. all playing out against the backdrop of utter and unstoppable corruption. So pervasive and evil that it almost becomes farcical.

This movie is extremely powerful, there are some images in there that will be burnt into your retina's for years to come. Some landscapes are especially haunting. I truly loved it, and wasn't expecting the gut punch it gave me at times.

Highly Recommended.
8 years 1 month ago
MoutardedShroom's avatar

MoutardedShroom

So Russia... are you ok?

No, seriously, incredibly beautiful film, although it lacks a bit of subtleness for my taste. With that said, cinema should aim towards this kind of works.
9 years 1 month ago
auxt's avatar

auxt

Beautiful filmmaking that held my interest for the full 140 minutes.

Zvyagintsev's Vozvrashchenie AKA The Return (2003) is well worth seeking out too, as indicated by the numerous lCM lists it's on. ;-)
9 years 2 months ago
memo1's avatar

memo1

Interesting facts from IMDB

The idea of Leviathan was inspired by the story of Marvin Heemeyer from Colorado town of Granby. Andrey Zvyaginsev heard about it in 2008 and it took him 6 years, after numerous modifications, to come up with a movie in 2014.

&

The screenplay is a modern rework of the Book of Job.
9 years 2 months ago
Fantasma13's avatar

Fantasma13

Auxt Thank you for the sugestion, will check it out.
I thought was a very well made movie, worth rewhatching, and a lot of debate
8 years 11 months ago
Larkspire's avatar

Larkspire

Nicely done. Not as subtle as it wants to be, however - most of the audience should already grasp the main theme and message of the work before they're beaten over the head with it in the last scene (although it was still a nice visual touch to the film, its ironic juxtapositioning is more like what you'd expect to see in high school drama than in an acclaimed Cannes entry).
9 years 7 months ago
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